"You don't need that"

Episode 1: On letting go

Dailyness, the podcast, is now in the world with episode one!

Each edition will be available as both an essay here on Substack, and a podcast episode wherever you like to listen.

The new project is shaped by the daily observation practice I've cultivated for over 1,000 days. The habit has been a consistent reminder to not just notice the small things, but to live in the day—and each episode will be a place to explore the connections found within them.

I’m looking forward to deepening this practice with readers and listeners alike. For now, you can find the musing on the art of letting go—in your choice of written or audio format—alongside the daily observations that shaped it below.

Listen to the first episode of the Dailyness podcast on
Substack | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pocket Casts | iHeart

How do you know when to hold on to something, and when to let go?

Sometimes answers to these existential puzzles reveal themselves in the most everyday encounter.

Like earlier this week, for instance, I had a surprisingly eye opening phone call with Eric from GoDaddy.

For years, I’ve been trying to get a particular domain name back after accidentally letting it expire. I’ve called half a dozen times already, and on this occasion I wanted to check something about the automatic domain tracking.

Eric from GoDaddy bluntly told me: “You don’t need that.”

At first I was irritated. Who was this Eric to tell me what I did or did not need?

So I launched into further explaining myself — I needed the domain to get back into the associated email account, to then be able to get back into the Instagram account for the project I used to run and update some links.

“I understand,” Eric replied, and, to his credit, with a tone of genuine empathy, “But I still don’t think you need it. You can do something new.”

While I gave that thought some pause, Eric from GoDaddy told me a story. When he was eight years old, he really wanted this particular bike. It took more than half a decade to save up his pocket money, and when he finally did, it was stolen within six months. He searched and searched for the stolen bike, with no luck. Years later, when he had finally let go of ever finding the bike again, he was given another—and it happened to be a more enhanced model.

Now suitably charmed by Eric’s whimsical insight, I got the message. “Let it go,” he added. “Focus on your new project, and allow that to become something bigger and better.”

It’s the first time in years I’ve felt a sense of relief about that lost domain. I know it’s a small, insignificant thing to carry around with me through the days, but admittedly, I can have a habit of holding on to these little losses.

Sometimes they come in the shape of regret. Other times, ideas I have yet to enact and worry someone else might run with them first. Sometimes it’s conversations I wish went differently, or decisions I would love the chance to remake.

When it comes to dealing with these little losses, maybe I just need to remind myself of Eric from GoDaddy’s wisdom: “You don’t need it.”

Simple enough to say, maybe, but letting go can take practice. And maybe these little losses or everyday irritations offer us that very chance.

I’m reminded of the poem “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop. It begins:

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Just like my phone call with Eric, this poem offers a jolt — here I am, wandering through my day, treating the loss of a domain name like a disaster.

It’s human, I think, to get caught up in anxiety, overwhelm or even grief about the little things.

At times, such rumination can be a convenient distraction from the more pressing things.

Sometimes we might need the momentary reprieve of distraction, but other times, when we hold onto so-called regrets, losses, or mistakes, we diminish our ability to make progress in other areas.

There’s research suggesting that dwelling on a less-threatening loss actively pulls attention and energy away from other parts of life. Psychologists sometimes describe it as a kind of avoidance loop: the more we ruminate, the less bandwidth we have for the things that actually need our attention.

Put simply, holding on can create a barrier to action.

It’s revealing that when I was meant to be working on my new project, I decided to chase up this rather irrelevant lost domain instead. I got all caught up with this less-threatening loss, because it was easier for my brain to ruminate on that, than to focus on the more ambiguous, uncertain, and demanding work of this present project.

But this very thought pattern keeps me in the past, rather than in this day.

Of course, some regrets, losses, and mistakes are difficult to face. A lost domain is nothing in comparison to the loss of a dear friend, or one’s health, or a home.

What I appreciate about the One Art poem is that Bishop names a varying magnitude of losses: her mother’s watch; beloved houses; even rivers and whole continents. Whether seemingly innocuous or utterly destructive, losing is still—according to the poem—no disaster.

Though, there’s something enigmatic about how that’s phrased within the poem. As the final stanza reads:

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Because any kind of loss can look like disaster, it requires effort to prevail. The art of losing is not too hard to master, but it is still an art, a practice, an intention.

It needs to be an art because life is a series of losses. One of its most defining qualities is that it is inevitable. But that’s not at the front of our minds day to day, it’s only when we are experiencing a profound loss or allowing these little losses to irritate us that it consumes our daily lives.

Another defining quality of loss is that while it can devastate us, it can also free us.

Equally, we can also lose the very things that hold us back: we can let go of a limiting belief, change our habits, and see shifts in a previously confining circumstance.

We can even lose our fear of losing or failing. This is where the art of losing can be applied to letting go of what others might think, or obsessing about whether something will be a success before it’s even begun.

Yet we don't often frame these things as something we can just let go of, and I'm curious why that is.

Why is it sometimes easier to hold on, stay stuck, play it safe? I think, for me at least, a project, idea, or even life never pursued can always be perfect—nothing lost, but also nothing gained.

I have to remind myself again and again and again, that it’s okay to just see where something goes. To get on and ride. Some things take off, some things stall, some get lost or even stolen. When you hold that frame — of seeing where things go — then all those directions are okay. Even if it ends in a loss, it’s not a waste, they’re the steps that got you somewhere else — that moved you along.

That’s what Eric from GoDaddy helped me realise this week—the decision to hold on or let go is often down to whichever keeps us moving forward.

It’s about trusting ourselves, really.

When that falls short, maybe we just need someone to tell us bluntly: you don’t need that.

That letting go won’t be a disaster.

There’s something bigger and better on its way.

Listen to the first episode of the Dailyness podcast on
Substack | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pocket Casts | iHeart

Things from the day

Each episode of my new podcast draws on the various things I encounter, overhear, and observe each week or so. Here’s the latest batch that shaped the first episode ✨

Monday 13 July

Coworking with a friend, I told her that instead of working on my new podcast last week, I mostly spent it clearing my inbox, doing needless admin, and dusting down the top of my pantry shelf.

“Often we get the urge to clear things when something new is on its way,” she said with such conviction, I decided to believe her.

Tuesday 14 July

For a few years now, I’ve been desperately trying to get a lapsed domain name back for an old project. Today, when I called GoDaddy for probably the seventeenth time, I was greeted by an unexpectedly whimsical and wise customer service representative named Eric. Upon hearing my woes, he bluntly told me, “You don’t need that.”

It took a bit more convincing, but I eventually grasped his point. I didn’t need the domain back. I didn’t need to hold on to an old project. I didn’t need to keep distracting myself with the past.

Sometimes, we just need someone to remind us when to let go.

Wednesday 15 July

I ask the cashier how her day has been. “It turned itself around,” she tells me with this contagious smile. “You know how that sometimes just happens?”

“Oh, absolutely,” I reply, realising as I leave the store that her brightness just helped me do the same with mine.

Thursday 16 July

In the final lecture for my master's, the professor offered some advice as we each turned our attention to writing a thesis. “Be okay with showing your mistakes,” he said. “In a world with AI, we need to show our thinking, show our imperfection, and not be afraid to experiment. These so-called failings make us human.”

Friday 17 July

I’m out to dinner with my brother Nelson, talking about how it’s felt like a real slog getting started with a podcast again.

“A motor will always draw the most current when it’s starting up,” he says, before tucking into the elote. “So it is hard to get started, you’ve got to give it a chance to get momentum.”

It’s something I’ve heard many times before, but a welcome reminder all the same.

“And if you have multiple motors,” he’s on a roll now, in his electrical teacher mode. “You’ve got to be sure to stagger the start times for each so you don’t overload the main supply coming into the building.”

Isn’t all advice the same? One motor at a time. Bird by bird. Day by day.

Saturday 18 July

In a voice note, my friend started to berate herself for being behind on her PhD, but caught herself and declared: "What's so wrong with it taking the time it takes?"

Sunday 19 July

Planning the week ahead, it strikes me that our to-do lists are, in fact, imaginary. That’s not as flippant as it sounds—it’s an act of the imagination, and one of the most spectacular parts of human intelligence is that we have the ability to reimagine things for ourselves at any moment.

Read the archive of days

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